(Do you speak German? I remember a nice passage from Thomas Mann on this topic.) — baker

No, I don't speak German, unfortunately. But I speak Russian and Kazakh, and I grew up in a culture of mutual immersion between Russian and Kazakh cultures. Perhaps this determines my thinking. Every day, when making decisions about behavior, a person here considers the experiences of both paradigms. This may seem complicated on the surface, but internally there are no contradictions. Everything always works out somehow.

Well, I admit, for me, the idea of ​​valuing the given becomes clearer with age. In my 20s and 30s, I didn't think about this, but over time, I noticed that some things no longer come as easily to me as before. Again, understanding through loss. Of course, if I start moralizing about this to my children, they simply won't understand, because they have everything ahead of them. However, these questions began to resonate with me. And, as you can see, I didn't turn to psychologists, but first came to philosophers.

I'm not arguing with you. I know some people who are so immersed in the concerns of today that they have no time for such questions. Indeed, I'm sure each of us values ​​something, otherwise we would quickly decline as a civilization. However, I'd like to clarify how exactly this valuing occurs. And what can philosophy offer here without religion?

I can't talk to philosophy or religion.

Gratitude, for me, is largely ineffable. It’s a blend of feelings; mostly an intuition that things could be otherwise, and therefore a recognition of the value in the comforts, strengths and control one (or a community) does have. Alongside this comes a feeling of good fortune and thankfulness, and perhaps, a quiet sense of relief.

I think it's also shaped by people I've known who constantly complained about not having enough, of all things being subpar and then eventually ended up sick, dying, or broke, only to learn the hard way that they had actually had it 'good' all along. Gratitude can often be a state of comparison.

I am frequently grateful: for clean water, heating, food, for living without earthquakes, fires, floods, for my (so far) robust physical health, and for any material comforts I have. — Tom Storm

To whom are you grateful for all these things?

Or do you merely appreciate them?

Expressing gratitude is quite popular these days (google "gratitude journal"), yet most often, what these people are talking about is appreciation, not actual gratitude.

Gratitude is painful, uncomfortable. To be grateful is to be grateful to someone, and this puts one into an inferior position. To be grateful means to acknowledge one's indebtedness. To acknowledge one's insufficiency, one's dependence. To be grateful means to acknowledge that one's position in the intricate web of dependecies is precarious.
With that, gratitude evokes a sobering emotion toward life, a disenchantment.




That has go to be a fake.

(Do you speak German? I remember a nice passage from Thomas Mann on this topic.)
— baker

No, I don't speak German, unfortunately. — Astorre

Earlier, I was referring to this passage by Mann, when I was talking about how things almost magically work out for some people:

Es gibt eine Art von Menschen, Lieblingskinder Gottes, wie es scheint, deren Glück das Genie und deren Genie das Glück ist, Lichtmenschen, die mit dem Widerspiel und Abglanz der Sonne in ihren Augen auf eine leichte, anmutige und liebenswürdige Weise durchs Leben tändeln, während alle Welt sie umringt, während alle Welt sie bewundert, belobt, beneidet und liebt, weil auch der Neid unfähig ist, sie zu hassen. Sie aber blicken darein wie die Kinder, spöttisch, verwöhnt, launisch, übermütig, mit einer sonnigen Freundlichkeit, sicher ihres Glückes und Genies, und als könne das alles durchaus nicht anders sein...

http://www.buecherlei.de/fab/split/thommy.htm

From: Thomas Mann: Der Bajazzo

It is an interesting thing, eh? But yin/yang is real. When we're sick, we feel so good upon recovering. Better than we did before we got sick. I don't like winter in New York, but it makes me appreciate spring and summer more. I doubt we are built to take joy in the good without the bad now and again to compare it to.

To whom are you grateful for all these things?

Or do you merely appreciate them?

Expressing gratitude is quite popular these days (google "gratitude journal"), yet most often, what these people are talking about is appreciation, not actual gratitude.

Gratitude is painful, uncomfortable. To be grateful is to be grateful to someone, and this puts one into an inferior position. To be grateful means to acknowledge one's indebtedness. To acknowledge one's insufficiency, one's dependence. To be grateful means to acknowledge that one's position in the intricate web of dependecies is precarious.
With that, gratitude evokes a sobering emotion toward life, a disenchantment. — baker

Interesting that you raise this. I was going to say earlier that for me, gratitude feels like an indebtedness to a mystery for this fragile state of good fortune, which could disappear in a nanosecond. There is in fact a vulnerability built into it, and a deep sense of precariousness. But I guess my experience of gratitude doesn’t accord precisely with the classical use of the word; there’s also, built into it, an appreciation.

Do you feel gratitude?

I was going to say earlier that for me, gratitude feels like an indebtedness to a mystery for this fragile state of good fortune, which could disappear in a nanosecond. — Tom Storm

Sorry, but I remain skeptical about your calling yourself an atheist.

Sorry, but I remain skeptical about your calling yourself an atheist — Astorre

You’re welcome to be skeptical, makes no difference
to my disbelief.

Of course. But I'll be watching closely and waiting for you to slip up. :razz:

Ha ha! Well if I'm going to go, let it be Zoroastrianism.